President Donald Trump’s administration has finally reacted to Chechyna’s persecution of gay men.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen president, spoke with HBO to deny the reports of a ‘gay purge’ in the region.

He said if there were any gay people in the autonomous Russian region, who he referred to as ‘devils’, ‘for sale’ and ‘not people’, they should move to Canada.

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said her department found these comments to be ‘very concerning and also upsetting’.

She also claimed the administration was raising the issue with Russian authorities ‘at the highest levels’.

However, both Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have both refused to speak about Chechyna’s human rights abuses with President Vladimir Putin in the past few weeks. Read more via Gay Star News